Unions and Inequality

According to a book from Joseph Stiglitz (The Price of Inequality), the United States is paying a high cost as a country for the record levels of inequality in terms of wages, income, and wealth that currently exist in the United States. Wilkinson and Pickett (The Spirit Level) link these rising levels of inequality to numerous social problems, such as poverty, homelessness, incarceration rates, crime rates, and distrust.

Unions and Mobility

Freeman, Han, Madland, and Duke (2015) found that unions have a significant impact on intergenerational upward socioeconomic mobility. Some of their findings include the following: 

• A 10-percentage-point increase in a geographic area’s union membership is associated with low-income children ranking 1.3 percentile points higher in the national income distribution.
• A 10-percentage-point increase in union density is associated with a 4.5% increase in the income of an area’s children.
• Children of non-college-educated fathers earn 28% more if their father was in a labor union. 

To explore this further, this study is included in the optional reading for this lesson.

Unions and Safety

There are numerous studies that look at the relationship of unions to workplace safety. Generally, these studies show that unionized workplaces tend to be safer but may have more reports of safety violations due to the stronger voice of union workers. One of these studies by Morantz specifically looks at the mining industry. Morantz found that unionization is associated with a 14%–32% drop in traumatic injuries and a 29%–83% drop in fatalities. 

This study is available in the library resources.